


After This

by HomuraBakura



Series: Arc V Rarepair Week 2018 [7]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-07 07:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15214523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: Asuka plans to stay in Duel Academia after she graduates.  There's still a lot of kids who need help adjusting to life without a war, a school that needs to learn how to make up for what it's done.  The one she loves, though, doesn't want her to be here forever.





	After This

**Author's Note:**

> For Arc V Rare Pair Week 2018, Prompt 7: Future

“What are you going to do when you graduate?”

She was bent over the form on her desk, pencil sitting untouched on the wood beside her.  Asuka had a folder open on her knees, and she didn’t look up at the question.

“Stay here,” she said, without missing a beat.  “The school needs us to help everyone else.”

Kumi shook her head, her hair shifting over her shoulders.  It wasn’t in braids today, she hadn’t done them up when she’d finally gotten out of bed at noon and sat down at her desk to look at the sheet of paper she’d left their the day before.

“Wrong answer,” she said.

Now Asuka looked up, feeling her chest squeeze.  Kumi looked haggard. There were circles under her eyes, irises blank and hollow from a lack of sleep.  Her pajamas were rumpled from overuse, and her hair mussed against the back of her neck.

“I can’t leave,” Asuka said.  “The school needs me. The students need me.”

_ You need me _ , she didn’t say out loud.

“It’s not your job to fix us,” Kumi whispered.  “It’s not your job to fix me. Don’t let me hold you back.”

Asuka put the folder aside on the bed, crossed the space in a breath.  She drew her fingers lightly through Kumi’s hair, lightly undoing the knots at the bottom with her fingers.  She picked up an unused comb from the desk, and began to gently stroke it through Kumi’s hair.

“Stop it,” she said.  “Stop it.”

Kumi’s tears sprinkled the empty sheet on the desk.

“It’s so stupid that they gave us this assignment,” she said, not even reacting to the comb in her hair, dancing her fingers over the words that read  _ first career choice, second career choice, third. _  “As if they didn’t breed us to become only one thing, one thing that’s not necessary anymore.  As if they didn’t ruin us.”

“Kumi, breathe,” Asuka whispered, but Kumi only shook under her arms.

“You need to leave this place,” Kumi said.  “You need to fly away. Please, Asuka. You can do so much out there.”

“I can do more good here.”

“It shouldn’t be your job!  You were hurt here, too! You shouldn’t have to— think you have to stay behind and fix their mess!”

Asuka put the comb down.  She leaned down into Kumi’s hair, half to breathe in the scent she thought she’d never find ever again, half to hide the tears that are bubbling over her eyelashes now.

“If I leave, I want you to come with me,” she said.

Kumi’s shoulders shook.  She put her hands over her mouth.

“I don’t have a future,” she said.  “I’ll hold you back. I don’t want to hold you back here anymore with me.”

Asuka leaned back to run her fingers through Kumi’s hair again.  Gently, deftly, like she’d done so many times before the world had fallen apart, she began to weave the hair over and under itself.  It felt so natural to pull her hair into neat braids, one over the top of the other, one at a time. It was simple, understandable— unlike the long nights where she’d hear the tears sobbed into pillows on the bunk beneath her, or the screams she’d awaken to in the dark and the shaking shoulders beneath her hand as Kumi screamed over and over that she couldn’t see, that she didn’t know where she was.  Her fingers shook, and she nearly lost the braid.

“I can’t leave you,” Asuka said.

“I’m never going to be okay,” Kumi said.

“I don’t care.”

“We’re never going to get back what we had before.”

Asuka finished the braid, and tied it off neatly.  She looked off balance with only one, asymmetrical, but Asuka’s fingers couldn’t stay still enough to do another one.  She put her hands onto Kumi’s shoulders instead, slid her face down to breathe lightly into her neck.

“That’s okay,” Asuka said.  “The future is long, and I don’t want what we had before.  I want....I want what we can be.”

Kumi cried, her hands crinkling the paper hard til it almost tore.

“I don’t want to ruin you,” she said.  “I don’t want to ruin your life.”

Asuka closed her eyes away from the tears, and slid her arms all the way around Kumi in the tightest hug she could muster.

“My life was already ruined when they took you away from me,” she said.  “And when you came back, it was unruined.”

Kumi broke down.  Asuka moved around her so that Kumi could press her face into Asuka’s chest, clinging and clenching to Asuka’s shirt.  Asuka ran her fingers through Kumi’s hair, one braid, and one unbraided. Unbalanced, different. But not wrong.

“I love you,” Kumi sobbed.

Asuka tightened her grip.

“I love you, Kumi,” she whispered.


End file.
